We stayed in the royal suites for our honeymoon from 6/14-6/21/2008. We are from Ohio and booked through Apple vacations. We loved every minute of it. The employees of the hotel were great. The service was impeccable. The bartenders at the pool bar were awesome!!! hi teodoro and ronnie!

The beach is beautiful. The sand is soft and the water is clear blue and warm(but cold enough to cool you off on a hot day). The pool was refreshing and we met some great people there. Hi everyone!!!

They do have some american liquor at the royal suites such as Jim Beam/Skyy vodka but you have to ask for it. All of the drinks i had were strong enough to taste the alcohol. I had WAYYY too much to drink one day but we did get to meet alot of people by me being drunk :)

The only complaint i would have is the food. I am a very picky eater to begin with(i only eat chicken, no meat or seafood) but my husband had a hard time finding something to eat as well. I would say the best place we ate at was the Mexican themed a la carte.

We had a honeymoon suite in the royal suites. On the first night and the 4th night, we had ants in our room. We called down to the front desk and they came and sprayed our room. We didnt have any problems after that.

Overall, we had a great time. The weather was great, the people(workers and those we met) were great. The beach was awesome. We had a great time on our honeymoon.

Please contact me if you have any questions!

Well, we returned Friday night from our enjoyable trip at the Palace. It was very nice and the weather was wonderful. The grounds are very nice and yes, the resort is quite large. If you take the tram around you will get your bearings and you will be fine. We were a party of eight and we did walk and it was okay. You have the option of the tram or the casino car (golf cart like cars).

The theme restaurants are located throughout the resorts. The Palace has the Italian (across the street from lobby). Punta Cana has Dominican (by the beach). The Bavaro has Mexican, Japanese/Chinese/Thai and Spanish (next to the lobby). Across the street is the Sports Bar. The Bavaro also has the Seafood/Steakhouse located by the ocean. I thought that the Mexican and Japanese were the best. They all have very little choices on the menu and offer very unique options. The seasonings are very different from what we are used too. The buffets have many choices. We made it through the week fine (just remember if you want a change go to the Sports Bar for pizza and ice-cream). It is not the same pizza they have at the lunch and dinner buffets. Just remember they are cooking for thousands of people at each meal!

The bars are located all over the resorts. Hemmingway’s (Bavaro section) by far has the best alcohol in terms of quality and choices. I felt that the bartenders were very generous with the amount of alcohol that went into the drinks. The bars at the beach are very limited. Some of the bars had bands or entertainment at night.

The rooms were very clean. We did have problems with the lock on our door and our safe alarm. The safe alarm was resolved pretty quickly because of a very nice maid and my son communicating in Spanish. When we called the front desk we were told to wait a number of times. My sister's room had a problem with the air conditioner and it took three days to resolve the problem. They eventually moved her to another room. I questioned if they really couldn’t understand the language or they choose not to.

Our group of eight consisted of two American families; each family having two teenagers. I don’t think the resort caters to teenagers at all with the exception of the sports complex. They didn’t have teen hours at the disco. The only way they could go is at 11:30 with an adult. The resort had very few children or teens at all. And when we did see them they did not speak English. Most of the guests were Spanish or German. Language was definitely a challenge. Our group made the best of it and did our best to speak Spanish. Most of the staff was very appreciative of our efforts (others were not). We also always tipped to show our gratitude. I was appalled at the way some of the guests treated the workers. People were demanding, screaming out orders and just plain rude!

To sum it up we stayed at a nice resort with good food that got repetitive at times. We learned a lot about the Dominican culture and people. We really brushed up on our Spanish and met some very interesting and hard working Dominicans (some nice some not so nice). We enjoyed the beautiful pool (until the pool swim-up bar burned down) and the absolutely SPECTACULAR views of the ocean. Not bad for a week away!

All in all I do think it was a good value for your dollar. Would we go back? Maybe in 5 years or so (they are really building up the area). If we return, it will be a resort that enjoys Americans more!

Early Tuesday morning the palapa/pool bar burned down. The pool was filled with all the burnt palm fronds and soot as well as the bar destroyed. The pool was closed immediately for repairs. But thanks to some great Domincan igenuity it should be turned around fast. They brought in 30 workers Tuesday night, drained the pool and have been working around the clock with lights all night long. Wednesday they began rebuilding the pool bar and trying to refill the massive pool. We left Thusday and the pool was almost refilled and may open soon with the pool bar not too far behind. There are two beautiful pool next door in the Punta Cana section for use.
Check back later for a full review of our 11 nights at this incredible and beautiful resort. Also if anyone goes I would love a photo of what the "new" pool bar looks like.

Later...

We just returned from the Royal Suites today and I will never return again! We stayed for 7 days with 2 other couples. If you have ever stayed at a real 5 star resort this won't meet up to what you're use to!!! The service is TERRIBLE at the resturants, the food isn't very good, the resturants are hot, you won't get drinks until you have already started eating your food! If you don't speak spanish then you might as well just forget it!!! I will say the Italian resturant is pretty good as well as the surf and turf. The bar staff are very good we loved Danny Boy and Ronie!! There is NO entertainment at the pool at all!!!!!!! The beach is beautiful and very relaxing!! The resturants are all far away and you spend at least a hour just going to lunch! Our bathroom sink had little ants on it. Every morining we had no cold water to brush our teeth or take a shower. The room was pretty. The only good thing about this hotel is that it is soooo beautiful and the beach is wonderful and the bartenders are good! I will never return to Punta Cana again I will stick to Mexico!!!!!!!!!!!!!!